by Jakob Tanner
“Elle,” he finally said. “Is that really you?”
“No, actually,” said the girl. “I just look genetically similar to you and call you brother as a prank.”
Max grinned.
The first thought that came to his head was: Casey would like this girl.
Max wasn’t sure what to say next.
Everything he’d done up to this point was in service of finding Elle and now that she stood right in front of him, he had no idea what to do.
He wasn’t sure what it would be like to finally find her, but this wasn’t how he had imagined it.
Even with all the clues and signs Elle had left for him, he still struggled to believe she’d actually be working for The Fallen Angels or be capable of killing a tower god.
He cleared his throat and finally said, “Elle—why are you doing this?”
“It’s the only way to achieve what I want,” she said.
“Bloodshed? Death? Destruction?” Max said. “What did Sabriel ever do to you? As far as I can tell, she was helping keep the peace.”
Elle’s face was cold and serious.
“You call this peace?” she said. “An alliance that sends their best climbers to fight and harm each other. Do you think the tower gods would really let everyone have an alliance without some benefit for themselves? They want to know who the strongest of the lower floors is and take them out before they’re a threat. This tower is designed to antagonize people into killing each other, don’t you see that?”
Max’s heart was racing.
This was not the reunion he had envisioned.
He thought he would hug his sister, cry tears of joy. Not argue with her about tower politics and ethics.
And yet, he felt like he had to; and that the argument wasn’t just about abstract ethical situations, it was about what was happening around them.
It was about her and him.
All this time, he had been searching for his long lost sister. He had never considered that somewhere along the way maybe Elle had lost that little girl inside of her as well.
Maybe—just maybe—through his conversation, they could find that little girl they had both lost, together.
And then they could remember that they were a family.
Max cleared his throat.
“So, you’re just going to contribute to all the meaningless destruction then?” Max asked. “What’s the point? Even if we do have to get our hands dirty, shouldn’t we at least strive to make this place better?”
The girl sighed.
“You might have been able to convince me,” she said, “if my goal was to make the tower a better place; but I don’t care about the tower or anyone in it. I don’t even care if the tower lives or dies. I only care about killing the man who murdered our parents. If that means I have to destroy the tower in the process, so be it.”
The man who murdered our parents.
Nicolas Adler.
The man he saw when Mother had trapped him in his own memories.
He hadn’t had a chance to fully process the memories that Mother had unlocked in his brain, including, whether or not they were even true or false.
But something in his gut as soon as he saw them had told him that they were true.
Elle’s words only confirmed that fact.
“I was going to invite you to join me,” said Elle. “I thought you’d want to help me destroy the man who ruined our lives. So will you accompany me with my task, older brother?”
Tears filled Max’s eyes.
He shook his head.
He was so happy to see his sister. He’d worked so hard to get here. He wanted to bring her home.
He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her yet again.
“I can’t join The Fallen Angels,” said Max. “But you can return to Zestiris with me. You can stay with me at my place. You can meet my friends. Sakura—she’s the climber president now, she has a bit of a temper and obsession with romance books, but I think you’ll like her. Then you can meet Sarah—she’s who I grew up with in the outer-rim. And then there’s Casey—she’s been my best friend since I entered the tower-zone, maybe more than friends even. I think you’ll like her too. She has a cute gerbil named, Toto. And—”
“Stop,” said Elle, coldly.
Max’s eyes were filled with tears now.
If Elle hadn’t stopped his speech, he would have kept going and he wouldn’t have stopped. He’d name every great positive thing in his life in an effort to convince his sister to come home with him.
“You’re not going to convince me,” she said. “And it looks like I won’t be able to convince you.”
“I won’t let you go,” said Max. “I won’t lose you again.”
Elle sighed.
“It was good to see you again, brother.”
Her arm then mutated into the shape of a gigantic axe in a horrific combination of bone, steel, and flesh.
The two siblings readied themselves to fight.
77
Tiberius slashed his mana sword up, slicing a demon completely in half.
The burst of black ichor and blood burst from the creature as its remains collapsed onto the ground in a sickly dark puddle before sizzling out of existence altogether.
The horrible hissing and panting of the flesh-hungry shadow monsters echoed in his ears.
Damn, he thought as he looked around, I’m surrounded.
He’d barely managed to move very far beyond where he’d been sitting in the arena.
There were just too many demons.
Too many civilians.
Too much chaos.
Too much destruction.
He had resigned himself to do everything in his power to help out everyone in the capital, but it was proving difficult when countless monsters surrounded him.
He rushed forward and kicked one shadow demon in the gut, sending it hurtling backwards into a group of others.
As they stumbled to get their bearings, he plunged his mana blade through four of them at once like a demonic meat skewer.
Without hesitation, he spun around with his sword, lobbing off the head of another shadow demon that he anticipated would be there.
Tiberius caught his breath and logged into his Caesarian communication device.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked. “We need to reform our squad.”
The messages flickered in.
Everyone else was surrounded and fending for themselves just as he was.
Damn, he thought. Gotta keep fighting.
The throng of demons rushed forth towards him in an endless mass.
On the other side of the arena, Oliver punctured crucial mana veins of the shadow demons, making them collapse with internal injuries.
Will—in shadow bear mode—then mopped up the diminished demons in one powerful slash of his sharp magically infused bear claws.
“Good work, Will,” shouted Oliver, as he rushed through the demon horde, puncturing their mana veins. “Keep it up!”
Oliver wasn’t sure how conscious Will was when he was in shadow-bear mode, but he figured positive reinforcement was always a good thing.
The shadow bear ripped a demon in two and then whipped the top half of the creature’s body into a group of four or five shadow demons in a deadly projectile.
Clearly, Oliver smirked to himself, the positive encouragement was working.
One shadow demon leaped towards Oliver. The Elestrian A-ranker imbued his fists with mana and punched the monster right in its beating mana heart, killing it instantly.
He turned around and continued his team strategy with Will.
It was working just fine.
But that was it.
Not amazing.
Not great.
Fine.
As Oliver tried to catch his breath, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself: how long can we keep this up?
Casey flew through the stands of the arena at top speed, dragging her wind katana behind her as it sliced thro
ugh the flesh of countless shadow demons.
She kept an eye on Sarah who was in the center of the arena, doing her best against what the demon monsters threw at her.
“You alright?” Casey asked, flying down towards her and destroying a few more demons surrounding the E-rank girl.
Sarah caught her breath and said, “Now that you’ve killed all the demons around me, I’m fine. But, oh wait, here’s more!”
Sarah imbued her fists and walloped an incoming demon in the head, sending it hurtling backwards before it completely burst into nothing.
“Most of the demons aren’t that strong,” Sarah observed. “But there’s so many of them. We’re going to run out of trait usages and mana. How can we keep this up?”
Casey gulped.
She was thinking the exact same thing.
How much longer can we last? she thought to herself.
She narrowed her eyes and focused on the current task at hand.
She elongated her wind katana and sliced through another throng of shadow creatures, sending them quickly to their deaths.
We’ll just have to kill them faster then.
Regulus paced back and forth on the floating podium.
Pure chaos and destruction surrounded the two ambassadors from below.
“Hermia,” he said. “Contact all soldier class Caesarians and have them mobilized to the coliseum to help with the threat.”
This is an absolute disaster, Regulus thought, looking down to the throngs of shadow demons that filled the arena.
A sad thought fluttered in his mind.
This was the exact type of situation they needed an ally like Sabriel for.
She would have been able to wipe out this demon army with absolute ease.
Instead, they had to fight with the disadvantage of shock and ill preparedness.
“Um,” said Hermia. “We got a problem.”
“What is it now?” asked Regulus.
Hermia gulped. “You should turn around?”
The floating podium they were on had risen above the coliseum’s walls to reveal the entire city.
“It’s not just the arena,” Hermia gasped. “The whole city is under attack!”
78
Max clenched his fists and prepared himself to fight.
His sister rushed towards him.
“Just because you’re my brother,” Elle hissed, “doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you.”
Max smirked.
He couldn’t believe it had come to this.
He was fighting his sister.
She was even taunting him with trash talk.
This was the last thing he wanted to do, but it looked like there was no other way.
“Same goes for me,” he finally replied and triggered shadow blink.
He reappeared behind his sister, but she had already spun around and was hurling a blow towards him.
Damn, Max thought. She’s fast.
Not only that, her responsiveness to the change in the flow of battle was out of this world.
Max could only compare it to one thing.
Harold.
Could that mean...?
No.
Did Elle have some kind of temporal defense ability?
Then, Max remembered that Elle had somehow been able to bypass Harold’s temporal defense?
She had severely wounded the old-timer.
Does that mean temporal defense won’t work?
Elle slashed her mutated axe arm towards him and he triggered temporal defense.
The slash rushed through the area of his temporal control without slowing down.
What the—!?
Max quickly triggered phase-out and let the attack slash through his immaterial body dealing no damage.
He quickly jumped back to create more distance between his sister and himself.
He caught his breath and took in Elle.
Damn, he thought. That was a close one.
Elle caught her breath and took in her older brother.
The boy in front of her was panting and sweating.
“Not bad,” she said.
He’s got an arsenal of effective abilities that put him a cut above most other climbers, but he still had a long way to go in matching her strength.
She’d been training as a climber for a much longer time than her brother and it showed.
Her passive ability—heijo shin (intense focus)—gave her a level of battle calmness that could see infinitesimally small movements across time allowing her to have an unparalleled level of reaction speed, even against someone who could manipulate time in their immediate vicinity.
She outmatched her older brother so much she almost felt bad.
As the boy across from her readied to continue the fight, she asked, “Why are you making me do this brother? Why won’t you join me?”
“What you’re doing isn’t right?” Max shouted at her. “There’s innocent people out there right now, fleeing from shadow monsters your team summoned!”
There’s no use arguing, Elle thought to herself. There’s still so much he doesn’t understand.
I don’t want to fight you, Max.
But I don’t see any other way.
Max shadow blinked as his sister rushed at him with a new intensity.
He reappeared and readied to block her attack with phase-out.
“I like your abilities,” Elle said. “But try dodging this.”
Max’s eyes bulged at Elle’s next attack.
He couldn’t believe it. He still didn’t understand her ability. The flexibility, the ingenuity, the fluidity. It was like ten different abilities rolled into one.
Elle shot forth her axe arm, the mutated flesh stretching out towards him.
Then she did something completely new.
Along her stretched mutant arm, tendrils began to mutate into swords, knives, and axes.
It was no longer one attack he had to dodge but several.
He shadow blinked, then phased out.
He kept repeating this as his sister’s attacks remained unrelenting.
He just needed to get closer to her.
If he could get one hit in with his lightning flail or something of that ilk, he should be able to stop her.
Elle thrust out her other arm, sending out a bone pincer attack.
Max triggered phase-out once more and nothing happened.
Wait, what!?
Oh no.
Max realized he’d been dodging so many attacks and relying on his abilities he’d hit his daily quota of trait usages.
In the blink of an eye, Elle flashed and was suddenly behind him.
Her arm mutated into a demonic hammer that smashed right into the back of his skull.
Max collapsed to the floor.
Elle stood over her defeated older brother.
She caught her breath and wiped her brow.
“I’m sorry, Max,” she said, “but there was no way you would have beaten me.”
The boy didn’t reply.
He just laid unconscious on the ground.
The blow she’d hit him with had been incredibly powerful.
She didn’t see him waking up any time soon.
“It was nice to see you again,” she said, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.”
She wiped her eyes and continued speaking to her brother on the ground, battered in defeat.
“It seems that since that fateful day when we were separated, the gulf between us has grown too immense. We’re different people now.”
Her shoulders shook as she spoke and she felt the tears gush out from her eyes.
“In many ways,” she hiccupped, “we’re no longer brother and sister. No longer family even.”
With that, she began to walk away.
She was a few steps down the passageway when she heard a grimace behind her.
He can’t still be conscious, can he?
She turned around and saw her older brother
trembling on the ground.
His arms were shaking as he lifted himself up.
Blood leaked from his mouth.
He swayed as he got back onto his feet.
“Shut up,” he spat. “I’m your older brother and that’s never going to change. I don’t give a damn what you say, Elle. You’ll always be my sister!”
Elle tilted her head.
She mutated both her arms into two bone blades on either side of her.
“I’m sorry, brother,” she said, “but it really is time to say goodbye.”
79
Harold woke up to the sounds of shattered glass.
This was followed by screams.
Then the innocuous repetition of a heart monitor.
Where am I? he wondered to himself.
He looked about and saw medical wires and equipment all around him.
The memory of what happened quickly came back to him.
Blake had been severely injured and then he had been as well.
Harold heard more commotion outside his hospital room. Strange disturbing panting and hissing could be heard.
Harold looked down at his frail wrinkled skin.
You really are growing weak, aren’t you, old man? he thought to himself.
I’m the A-ranker of the human team.
What have I done?
I’ve been paralyzed...wounded...injured...
A scream echoed from beyond his door.
“SOMEBODY HELP! DEMONS!”
And now the hospital is under attack by freaking demons!?
Harold ripped off the medical wires attached to him and jumped out of bed.
Enough is ENOUGH!
The Caesarian nurse cowered in fear as the demon monsters crept towards her.
She could feel their hot breath from meters away.
Their deep red eyes looked at her with a hunger.
A yearning for her flesh.
“HELP!” she cried once more.
Her voice cracked. She was running out of stamina. She was losing the energy to scream.
I don’t want to die!
The demons approached her, getting close enough to rip her flesh to pieces.